Human Design Gates
Receptive Direction
G/Identity Center Gates
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Origin 1987
Gate 2 lies in the G or Identity centre and is read as the receptive keeper of direction, the sense of where a life is meant to go that works by orientation rather than by force. It carries the number of the second hexagram, The Receptive: six broken lines, pure yin, which the classical commentaries treat as earth to the first hexagram's heaven, and which counsels the yielding strength of one who follows rather than leads. Human Design joins it to Gate 14 in the channel of the Beat, so that direction meets the fuel to move. The yin and yang polarity is the I Ching's own; the reading of it as a driver's seat inside a body map belongs to the modern system, not to the Chinese tradition.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1987 3Tradition: Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987) Origin PeriodReceptive Direction is gate 2 of the sixty-four gates of the Human Design system, corresponding to Hexagram 2, The Receptive of the I Ching; the system itself was synthesized in 1987 out of the I Ching, the chakra teaching, Kabbalah and astrology. 3 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseThe I Ching of China, the chakra teaching of India, Kabbalah and astrology are drawn on here inside a scheme assembled in 1987 and offered as an instrument of psychological counselling. The four traditions it draws on are old; the arrangement that joins them is not, and none of them produced it. 3 Correspondences
CenterSourced to the subject's own account Channel PartnerSourced to the subject's own accountGate 14 (Channel of The Beat) 2 I Ching CorrespondenceSourced to the subject's own accountHexagram 2, The Receptive 2 Learn More
The Gate and Its I Ching Hexagram
Gate 2 of the Human Design system carries the name "Receptive Direction," and this entry describes it as the system itself presents it. Human Design is a modern esoteric system, originated in 1987 by Ra Uru Hu (born Alan Robert Krakower, 1948-2011), who presented its content as received teaching rather than as an inherited tradition. It is roughly four decades old and is best read as a contemporary synthesis, not as ancient wisdom or established fact. Ra Uru Hu combined four older systems that had never before been joined: the I Ching supplies the sixty-four gates, the Hindu chakra model the nine centres, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life the connecting channels, and Western astrology the method of calculation.
The gates take their numbers from the King Wen sequence of the I Ching, so Gate 2 corresponds to hexagram 2, The Receptive. The link is one of numbering and binary structure only: the hexagram belongs to a genuinely ancient Chinese text, while the gate's psychological keynote, here summarised as "Receptive Direction", was formulated in the late twentieth century and is not drawn from the classical commentaries. The two meanings are best kept side by side rather than merged.
The Gate in the Bodygraph
Within the bodygraph, the composite body-map at the centre of Human Design, Gate 2 is placed in the G/Identity centre, one of the nine centres the system maps onto (and expands from) the seven-centre chakra model. Gates do not act alone in the model: each pairs with another gate to complete a channel joining two centres. It belongs to the Channel of The Beat (2-14), which it forms with Gate 14 ("Skilled Power"). These placements and pairings are features of Ra Uru Hu's 1987 design and describe the system's internal mechanics; they are presented here as the system's own claims, not as verified facts about human beings.
The G/Identity centre carries a specific function in the system's own account: a sense of self, direction and love, read as the seat of identity in the model. Gate 2 is one of 8 gates the bodygraph assigns to this centre, and its reading is built from that placement rather than from anything in the classical hexagram commentary.
The same number appears elsewhere in this atlas as Gene Key 2, Richard Rudd's later, contemplative rereading of the identical hexagram. Where Ra Uru Hu gives the gate the fixed keynote "Receptive Direction", Rudd spreads the same number across a spectrum: the Shadow of Dislocation, the Gift of Orientation and the Siddhi of Unity. The two accounts share a hexagram and a number and diverge in almost everything else, since one issues a fixed mechanical reading and the other asks for years of contemplation.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Corresponds To
Human Design Gate 2, Receptive Direction, and Gene Key 2, From Dislocation to Unity, are the same wheel position, both keyed to Hexagram 2, The Receptive.
Human Design Gate 2, Receptive Direction, corresponds to Hexagram 2, The Receptive, per its own iching-correspondence fact.
Design Earth in These Crosses
Design Sun in These Crosses
Located in Center
Personality Earth in These Crosses
Personality Sun in These Crosses
Sources
1. The I Ching, or Book of Changes
Richard Wilhelm (trans.); Cary F. Baynes (English trans.), Princeton University Press, 1980The corresponding King Wen hexagram 2View the Source 2. The Human Design System
Ra Uru Hu (Alan Robert Krakower), Human Design America, 1992Gate 2, Receptive DirectionView the Source 3. Über den Tellerrand, ein Blick ins Human Design System (HDS)
Petra Stute, Virineya Würgler and Johnny Würgler, Springer, Journal für Gynäkologische Endokrinologie/Schweiz 24 (2021), pp. 50-51, 2021p. 50: the four systems synthesised, and the use made of the synthesisView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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